1. Technical Field
The embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a system and method for tracking a vehicle based on driver status.
2. Background Art
With conventional automotive vehicles, one or more keys are often shared between any number of drivers (e.g., parent/teen, employer/employee, owner/valet driver, or fleet vehicle owner/fleet vehicle driver). In one example, the parents of a teenager (or young adult) that is old enough to drive may provide the keys of the vehicle with the teenager. The vehicle may be equipped with various safety and/or driver notification features that may be enabled/disabled via a user interface based on the driver's needs. However, in some circumstances, the parent may not intend to have the various safety and notification related features disabled by the teenager. The parent may enable the safety and notification features prior to allowing the teenager to drive the vehicle, however there is no guarantee that the teenager may keep the safety and notification features enabled while driving the vehicle. Conventional vehicles fail to give parents, or other primary drivers, the option of preventing teenagers that are eligible to drive or other such secondary drivers from disabling safety and notification features.
In most cases, the parent, employer, owner of vehicle, or fleet owner may not be fully aware of the manner as to where the teen, employee, valet service provider, or fleet vehicle driver has driven the vehicle. In most cases, the primary driver has to assume that the secondary driver has driven the vehicle to the location specified by the secondary driver. Primary drivers may want to know where a teen, employee or valet driver has driven the vehicle when the primary driver is not in the vehicle.